Whatcom County murder-suicide victim was mom of 7

Selfie of Anita Roy that she posted on her Facebook page on April 29, 2015.

Selfie of Anita Roy that she posted on her Facebook page on April 29, 2015.

A Whatcom County woman killed in a murder-suicide east of Nooksack has been identified as a mother of seven children.

Anita Judell Roy, 49, died Wednesday, June 10, when her husband Bryan F. Roy shot her with a .410-bore shotgun at their home on Sebens Court, off Carl Road, according to the Whatcom County Sheriff’s Office.

The couple had been arguing earlier in the day, but what led up to the shooting remained unclear, said Chief Criminal Deputy Doug Chadwick. It appeared Anita Roy had been trying to leave the house when her husband shot her in a vehicle. One of their children found her.

She still had vital signs when an ambulance reached the scene, but she died shortly thereafter.

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Bryan Roy’s body was found in the home, near a doorway. He’d turned the shotgun on himself, Chadwick said.

Dr. Gary Goldfogel, the county medical examiner, said autopsies would not be done until Friday.

Court papers outline a history of domestic violence: “He has pushed, poked, hit me, blackened my eye,” Anita Roy wrote in a request for a protection order in 2005. She also alleged he shot four dogs in front of the children, and had talked about “chopping (me) up in little pieces and burying (me) in the woods.”

A judge found domestic violence had happened in the home and granted the order. Since then he has had few brushes with the law.